Optimizing Google’s AdWords For Mobile Devices

By far, the dominant advertising platform on the web is Google’s AdWords. Up until very recently, Google’s AdWords was fine with serving ads to mobile devices that linked to pages with Flash content. In a recent change in policy, Google’s AdWords seems to now block serving pay-per-click ads to mobile devices (iPad/iPhone/Android) if the advertised website being linked to in the ad has any Flash running on it. This includes websites running javascript coded “Flash-checkers”. Google’s AdWords now requires that at least on your site’s initial landing/home page where you may have used a Javascript based Flash checker, you’ll now need to instead add specialized web code for checking what type of device has arrived to your home page, and then auto-route a visitor to appropriate mobile friendly Flash free content.

The situation is definitely not completely clear yet because Google hasn’t made any official statements on the matter. Since Goolge’s own Android mobile platform supports Flash this new policy is interesting, and appears to cater the growing market of iPhone and iPad users.

Dallas Web design & development company Interaria follows the developments of AdWord policy closely. Interaria specializes in coding websites that are “Google-friendly”.